There are at least two important points requiring a minimum of "regulation".

1. 170,000 orbital debris are a big source of potential accidents. The ISS has been damaged a little by such debris several times since its construction started. Other times it has been forced to move to another altitude because collisions with bigger objects were threatening.

Accidents and collisions in space are a potential source of consequences known from usual traffic on roads, on flight lines and on seaways. Because of this space travellers may try to seek justice at courts. Courts need rules established by the Congress. And it's required that it can be make sure, wether the crews of private spacecrafts respected these rule or not.

2. An increasing number of private launches to space travels means a new source of accidents along the courses to space from the spaceports. To prevent accidents along theses courses special spaceport rules are needed as on airports.

Actually, I see it as a possible profit venue: All that debris is mostly metal and carbon composites, right? So it must be worth something. Send up an orbital vehicle with a big scoop and 'vacuum' the skies clean. Then return to earth and sell the scrap, as well as collecting your commision for the cleanup job.

But the debris shouldn't removed from space at once and totally - perhaps some of them might be reused as a basis of orbital industrie, private space stations or spacecrafts built in orbit which never should go down to surface and only operate between orbits or launch from orbit to moon, mars and interplanetary space and return to orbit of earth.

In other words one should try to recycle debris for use in space as a way to clean orbits.

But rules doesn't become obsolete - there have to be satellites in orbit, that mustn't be removed from it. Sections of orbits have to be declared reserved for satellites etc. and forbidden for travels - other sections have to be declared free for passing by spacecrafts and forbidden for satellites.

i like your thinking there, zoning for sattelites or manned travel. obviously there would have to be 'gray zones' where both can be, and the zoning would almost certainly have to be based on altitude, not actual position. 'vacuuming' space for debris also seems like a good way of "mining" for resources without having to get to an asteroid, and it'd probably be really easy too (high powered magnet). of course you'd have to make sure that you don't deflect, say, an object massing several kilos and travelling 30,000 kph relative to you into your vehicle, but other than that.... and of course the stuff would be worth tons more in space than it is on land.

A couple of the shuttles external fuel tanks welded together might make a nice addition to a space station. If they haven't already dropped into atmosphere and burned up. Mmm, fuel tanks, welding, might not be such a great idea. Unless you want be become a glowing item for a few seconds.

Ekkehard's zoning idea may be the only practical means of traffic control for civilian space travel. The main reason being that unlike atmospheric flight, the only radars powerful enough to detect small but lethal space debris belong to the military. The big warning radars of RAF Fylingdales and the NORAD chain will never be released to traffic control duties for commercial operations. NASA have a spacetracking capability but who wants to pay them when they can effectively name their own price? Perhaps a Civil Space Authority (CSA) could purchase some of the old Soviet tracking ships and run as an off-shoot commercial operation like air traffic control?

Ekkehard's zoning idea may be the only practical means of traffic control for civilian space travel. The main reason being that unlike atmospheric flight, the only radars powerful enough to detect small but lethal space debris belong to the military.

Please don't rush to judgement that only government (military) can conduct debris monitoring. It was so long ago that they said private companies could not put a man into space.

Even socialist Canada has privatized a portion of their Air Traffic Control; something that should have happened in the US long ago when they finally deregulated the airlines and grew US air travel tremendously.

The closest thing to eternal life on earth is a government program.

_________________"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys."
P.J. O'Rourke

It is inevitable that govenernments will regulate the launch industry, it is their airspace, we must just try and keep the regulations to a minimum. We must, however try and keep government regulations out of space itself and establish a property rights based standard for international space law.